'Sunshine' Shimmers as a Sci-Fi Thriller

Michelle Yeoh in 'Sunshine'

Michelle Yeoh in 'Sunshine'

Michael Phillips, Chicago TribuneZap2It.com

"Sunshine" pulls a stern, gripping variation on the old David Letterman joke, the one about President Bush responding to a heat wave by ordering an attack on the sun. Director Danny Boyle, whose feature film career got off to a zippy start with "Shallow Grave" and "Trainspotting" and the zombie thriller "28 Days Later," here turns to that oddly neglected star in the science-fiction galaxy, our sun, which, according to screenwriter Alex Garland, is fizzling out (we're 50 years in the future) and must be re-ignited via a nuclear device.

It's a strong premise, unburdened by expository blather. While lacking in the sort of "movie-stupid moments" (phrase courtesy of another director, Jonathan Kaplan) that would ensure a wide audience, "Sunshine" is near-classic modern science fiction, hobbled only by a chaotic final reel and some casting missteps in the white-male department. Really! With all the white males around!

Bits of "2001," and many more pieces of "Alien," worm their way into the visual universe here. Yet the best of Boyle's film really does show you something new, along with its ordinary earthlings under duress. This film is the anti-"Armageddon," more into solar transcendence than action triumphalism.

The year is 2057. The future's so dark no one needs shades, and Earth's experiencing massive global cooling. Icarus I, a spacecraft loaded with nukes, failed in its sun-reviving mission years ago, its crew members presumed lost. Now Icarus II--"eight astronauts strapped to the back of a bomb"--must deliver its payload and try to get home alive.

Boyle, his designers and the effects team collaborate on what is surely one of the brightest science-fiction forays ever realized. The colors really pop out in "Sunshine," all the more startling given the doomsday scenario and the narrative outline, which has overtones of a suicide bombing mission. The ship itself is a warren of vast, dark spaces and unexpectedly homey touches, such as the greenhouse tended by Michelle Yeoh's biologist. Cillian Murphy plays the physicist, Capa, whose crewmates include tough 'uns played by Yeoh (talk about a camera face) and Rose Byrne, who seems to be on the verge of a little hey-hey with Murphy at various junctures. But then "Sunshine" is too serious of purpose to indulge them, or us.

The film works even if you don't buy certain aspects of the story. Every time someone in Garland's script expresses doubts about going through with the journey in order to save the planet, you think to yourself: Pipe down and think of the greater good. Early on, the ship picks up a mysterious signal originating from the long-lost Icarus I spacecraft. This complicates "Sunshine" in a good way, as does the question of how much oxygen is left in relation to how many Icarus II crew members are breathing it.

Only the finale disappoints: Boyle and editor Chris Gill are so eager to enrapture us with the terror and wonder of flying close to the big guy, they go a little nuts themselves. Murphy gets all the heroic footage, but "Sunshine" is an ensemble piece, well-cast and adroitly acted save for two instances. Chris Evans (full of synthetic snarls and unconvincing swagger) and Troy Garity (ditto and ditto) come up short. They seem to be auditioning for the TV series "Greek" while everyone else, on screen and off, goes about their business with stylish conviction.